What are the Differences Between Marketing Automation and CRM?
According to a study by Annuitas Group, companies that use marketing automation tools see their qualified leads increase by 451%. And according to Agile CRM, a CRM can increase their conversion rates by up to 300%.
Marketing automation and CRM can therefore have an extremely positive impact on a company's marketing activity and sales. But what makes them different and how do you combine their strengths?
What are the differences between marketing automation and CRM?
Marketing Automation and CRM have in common to be two digital tools for marketing teams. They both allow them to gain in efficiency and improve their marketing performance.
We'll start by taking stock of their differences and how they can complement each other. Next, we will recommend different marketing automation and CRM tools that can help you.
What is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management is both an approach to customer relationship management and a type of software. This approach is based on the strategic organization of a company's customer data to optimize its relationship with its customers.
It is the CRM software that makes it possible to apply this approach on a daily basis. It gives you the ability to collect and structure information about your customers and prospects, gleaned during your interactions with them. You can see the interactions you have had with them throughout their customer journey.
Push White Paper Sage CRM
The GRC software is intended for the 3 teams that affect customer relations: the sales, marketing and customer service teams. It facilitates the compilation and synchronization of their respective information.
This is particularly interesting in the current context where these teams interact with current and potential customers through a large number of channels: phone calls, emails, social networks, chatbots, webinars, etc.
In summary, CRMs are an asset of choice for companies because they allow them to:
Have a 360° view of their customer base and prospects
Increase the efficiency of marketing, sales and customer service teams
Calculate more accurately the ROI of their respective actions
Manage their performance more easily
Offer a better customer experience to better retain them
Automate some of their actions
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation (or marketing automation ) aims to facilitate the work of marketing teams on a daily basis. His goal ? Automate recurring and time-consuming tasks:
Send lead nurturing email campaigns,
Answer frequently asked questions with a chatbot on your website
Publish your weekly posts on social networks,
Produce your periodic marketing reports...
This type of software allows you to automate certain actions according to user behavior scenarios (downloading a white paper, abandoning a shopping cart, subscribing to a newsletter, etc.). No need for manual intervention!
Thus, a marketing automation tool saves time for a marketing team, while strengthening their prospecting and loyalty actions. All the more so because it connects easily with your other marketing tools: your emailing tool, your CRM, Google Analytics, Google Ads...
Why are marketing automation and CRM complementary?
So now that we've defined marketing automation and CRM , how do they join forces? Marketing automation and CRM are complementary tools that allow you to manage the end-to-end customer journey. The marketing automation tool will be able to automate your campaigns and nurture your leads, while the CRM will store all your data in order to analyze it.
To go into more detail, Marketing CRM can also act as a trigger for your marketing automation tool and allows you to send more relevant information based on the stage of the journey each prospect is at.
For example, if a prospect requests a trial version of software on your website, they are likely in the awareness phase. You could then take this opportunity to create an automated workflow that sends them educational resources (e.g. ebooks) over several weeks to further educate them. This will have more impact than sending him a very commercial email directly.
By combining the two, you can:
Develop your knowledge of your prospects and customers, registered in your CRM.
Increase your lead-to-customer conversion rate and your customer retention rate
Relieve your marketing team of time-consuming tasks so they can focus on higher value-added actions
Facilitate alignment of marketing, commerce and customer service
Why use a Marketing CRM?
Discover all that a CRM Marketing can bring you. Like - Dynamics 365 Marketing
Tell me everything
How do you combine the two in your business?
You have two options: adopt a CRM and a marketing automation solution that work easily in pairs, or equip yourself with a single solution that integrates both.
Adopt a CRM and a marketing automation solution
Maybe you are in one of the following cases. Do you already have a CRM that you appreciate but its automation features are too limited? Or do you already have a fantastic marketing automation tool but no CRM? There are a large number of CRM and marketing automation tools configured to work in tandem.
Are you looking for a CRM? That's good, we made an article on the subject .
Looking for marketing automation solution recommendations? Our experts advise you:
sendinblue
ActiveTrail
LeadFox
Push The best CRMs for SMEs
Equip yourself with an integrated solution combining Marketing Automation and CRM
Why rather equip yourself with a single solution integrating both marketing automation and CRM ? Simply because it's easier. The two tools are already integrated and you will not have to do anything to guarantee perfect fluidity in the exchange of information between the two tools.
On the market, the solutions that integrate the two are generally Marketing CRMs that also offer advanced Marketing Automation features.
Are you looking for a solution that integrates both? We recommend the following solutions:
Salesforce (Salesforce CRM and its automation tool Pardot)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM : Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM modules (Business Central Implementation , D365 for Finance and Operations , and more.)
HubSpot
Need advice? Do not hesitate to contact us ; Dynamics Square has been a CRM implementation for over 12 years.
